Maine State Police arrested a man and a woman from Georgia for allegedly forging personal checks worth $100,000 at stores throughout Maine and New England.

Kissie Whatley, 36, and Randall Bankston, 46, both of Atlanta, used stolen identities of people in Georgia, North Carolina and Indiana to create phony identification, passing checks in their names for gift cards or merchandise and then returning the items for cash later, police say.

At least $30,000 in fake checks were passed at retail stores in Maine, mostly at Staples and Wal-Mart, said Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for state police.

Whatley was charged with aggravated forgery, forgery and theft by unauthorized taking. Bankston was charged with organized retail theft and misuse of an identification card.

Police are looking for a third person in the scheme who could face similar charges. That person was not identified.

Using fake identification, Whatley rented a Biddeford apartment in July. He used a phony driver’s license to register a car and to obtain prescription drugs, state police said.

Whatley and Bankston allegedly used a computer and printer to produce the checks before passing them at stores around New England. It was not clear to investigators why the pair used Biddeford as a base of operations.

Also notified of the alleged fraud were U.S. postal inspectors, because some of the stolen identities and bank information came from stolen mail, police say.

 

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